Metro-2A: 159 trees to be cut, 151 transplanted

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s tree authority on Friday passed a proposal to cut 159 and transplant 151 trees to construct the Dahisar-DN Nagar corridor

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s tree authority on Friday passed a proposal to cut 159 and transplant 151 trees to construct the Dahisar-DN Nagar corridor on Link Road for Metro-2A.

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The last two times the proposal to cut these trees had been tabled, the Shiv Sena had opposed the move. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has supported the same, the Shiv Sena, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had repeatedly opposed the proposal. The last time they opposed it was last month.

Yashwant Jadhav, Shiv Sena corporator and member of the BMC’s standing committee, explained the change in his party’s stance on Friday. “We passed the proposal considering work was stalled, and we never opposed development,” said Jadhav. “We also raised the issue of trees that were transplanted for the Colaba-Seepz Metro-3 corridor. The trees that were transplanted are dead and we raised the issue of the survival rate of trees, which is constantly decreasing.”

Jadhav further clarified, “We have passed only the proposals that were of utmost urgency – for Metro works and 15 trees [recommended for cutting] by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.”

The construction of the Metro-2A corridor began in October 2016 and the line is expected to start commercial operations next year.

Meanwhile, the tree authority also passed a proposal on Friday to appoint consultants at a cost of around ₹2.6 crore, to build dense native forests in urban areas following the Miyawaki technique (named after Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki). The proposal to plant 3,77,416 trees using the Miyawaki technique, at a cost of ₹35 crore, was submitted around two months ago. According to the BMC’s garden department, around 31 acres across several locations in the city will be utilised for this dense forest.